The Horns of Nimon Part Four

The one where Romana visits a planet ravaged by the Nimon...

It's the last episode of this story, as well as the last episode of Season 17. It's also the last episode made in the 1970s, the last episode produced by Graham Williams, the last episode script edited by Douglas Adams, the last episode featuring David Brierley as the voice of K-9, the last episode scored by Dudley Simpson, the last episode to feature the diamond logo, the last episode to feature the original Tom Baker titles from 1974, and the last episode to use the Delia Derbyshire arrangement of the theme tune. It's also the last episode to see Tom Baker wearing his original multi-coloured scarf, and the last Fourth Doctor episode to crack 10 million viewers (or get anywhere near it). That's a lot of lasts.

Of course, it wasn't planned to be the last of any of these things, but following the loss of the sixth and final story of Season 17, Shada, thanks to industrial action, The Horns of Nimon inherited them all. I won't be reviewing Shada on this blog because it was never finished or transmitted in the way it would have been at the time. To all intents and purposes, Shada was aborted and only forms part of the Doctor Who canon thanks to subsequent recreations in audio and animated form. I think I'd find it hard to review an audio Shada or cartoon Shada in the same context as I have the rest of the series, so I'll leave it to one side, just as happened back in 1979.

The Horns of Nimon Part Three

The one where the Nimon's plan for mass migration becomes clear...

It's the first episode of the 1980s, and the first notable thing to happen is that a dying man splits his pants. Let's hope it's not a bad omen for what lies ahead, but I suppose it summarises the last few weeks of the 1970s quite aptly!

Now that the Doctor's back on the scene, Romana reverts back to her second-in-command status, which is a shame because Lalla Ward made a fantastic lead. Most of this episode concerns the Doctor, Romana, Seth and Teka running along corridors and asking questions to which there are few answers. Simon Gipps-Kent's Seth feels like a prototype for Season 18's Adric, but I can't help thinking it might have been better if Gipps-Kent played Adric, or perhaps Seth became a companion who stayed on into Season 18. I don't feel the same fondness for Janet Ellis as Teka sadly. As the prototype Nyssa of the set-up, she's just as plain as Sarah Sutton.

The Horns of Nimon Part Two

The one where Romana becomes the Doctor...

Tom Baker might as well have taken the week off for this episode for all the impact he has. It would have been absolutely fine with Romana taking the Doctor's lead role for the episode, and to be honest, preferable. Lalla Ward is every inch the lead actor here: she looks the part, she acts the part, and she's even given the part by writer Anthony Read. While Romana gets on with the story proper, the Doctor's back in the TARDIS messing about like he's in an episode of Crackerjack.

Every now and then the episode cuts back to the Doctor in the TARDIS, like a late 1970s BBC variety show which jumps between barely amusing comedy sketches. All the guff with the Doctor trying to fix the console is puerile, and when Dick "Special Sounds" Mills wheels out that awful sound effect for the console going whiz-bang-pop (from an old radio episode of The Goons?), it descends into embarrassment. I'm not sure Doctor Who has ever been more infantile. Dear, oh dear...

The Horns of Nimon Part One

The one where the Doctor dismantles the TARDIS...

Another post-Star Wars Doctor Who story, another opening shot of a spaceship flying past the camera. They never look as awesome as George Lucas's ships, of course, but I admire the production team's indefatigable determination to reproduce its effect for British TV! The inside of this ship has quite a detailed set by Graeme Story, full of computer banks and controls and all sorts of gubbins on the walls. Story has also used the ubiquitous triangular wall moulds that date back as far as 1972's The Mutants, as well as some barely disguised ribbed tumble dryer hoses! Ingenuity at work.

These opening scenes mainly comprise two grumpy space pilots arguing over how quickly they can get from A to B. The Pilot is keen not to rush things because the ship is so old it might not take the strain, whereas the Co-Pilot wants to get to their destination as fast as they can when he learns this is the last time they'll have to do it. The Co-Pilot's rash behaviour causes the ageing ship to buckle under the strain, and after a series of explosions and collapsing set, the craft is left hanging in space, powerless and directionless. That'll teach Co-Pilots to take matters into their own hands.

Nightmare of Eden Part Four

The one where we find out who the drug smugglers are...

There's a lovely scene near the start of this episode where Romana and Della talk about what happened on Eden and to Della's lover, Stott. Romana knows that Stott is alive, but holds this vital information back until she discovers exactly why Della thinks Stott's dead. It transpires she was told as much by Tryst, who even went to the trouble of mocking up a grisly vis-print to prove it. Lalla Ward and Jennifer Lonsdale pitch the dialogue beautifully, Lonsdale in particular hitting the right emotional tone when she learns Stott is still alive. It doesn't quite pass the Bechdel Test, but it's a touching moment between two women amid the nonsense.

The Doctor comes round aboard Dymond's Hecate, having slipped through the wrong side of the closing matter interface. He discovers Dymond has a CET machine and an enchooka laser aboard ship, which would enable him to extract the crystal projections from Tryst's CET machine aboard the Empress, then turn tail and run (with the vraxoin safely stowed within the projections). It's an ingenious idea, and all credit to Bob Baker for such an adult, thoughtful, workable plot. When you take away the silly monsters and the silver space costumes, Nightmare of Eden is actually one of the most original stories of the era.

Nightmare of Eden Part Three

The one where the Doctor discovers the source of vraxoin...

The monsters are called Mandrels ("Mandrel. Doctor, they're called Mandrels") and, let's take a step back here, they're not that bad. Often maligned, these monsters are actually quite nicely designed, quite well sculpted, even if they do look a little bit like grinning toads. They tower over human beings, they're big and scaly, they're ferocious with slicing claws and glowing green eyes, and they ROAR at people, just like proper monsters should. They look infinitely better in the gloom of the Eden projection, and lose most of their impact when lit in the harsh studio lighting of the Empress corridors, but still... I'm not going to knock them too much because they look like proper Doctor Who monsters. So there.

The early scenes of the Doctor and Romana creeping around the forest of Eden are gorgeous, lit so effectively by Warwick Fielding. It all feels so dangerous and dark, which heightens the tension and atmosphere no end. I love the slo-mo footage of the vines wrapping themselves around the Doctor's legs, like something out of an M R James adaptation, sort of uncanny and unsettling.

Nightmare of Eden Part Two

The one where Captain Rigg's drink is spiked with vraxoin...

Seeing the cliffhanger reprised just makes the whole thing seem even worse than before. You can actually see Tom Baker and David Daker trying to disguise their mirth as they approach the panel to remove it, because they know what lunacy lies behind it. A monster lunges out of the hole, swathed in dry ice, and K-9 wastes no time in shooting at it to fend it off. The oddest thing about it all is that neither the Doctor or Rigg appear to be very scared of the monster, which is probably because it doesn't look all that threatening, but really, as actors, they should have reacted a little more realistically.

And then they just pop the panel back into place (held from behind by a mysterious hand!) and the monster's gone again. "What the devil was that?" asks Rigg with barely a trace of fear or apprehension. They just take the fact there's a monster in the walls in their stride, it's directed so poorly by Alan Bromly, with no attempt at realism (as real as science-fiction can get).

Nightmare of Eden Part One

The one where a spaceship materialises as part of another spaceship...

"By Bob Baker". Whatever happened to his mate, Dave Martin? Baker and Martin were consistently the most imaginative scriptwriters Doctor Who had throughout the 1970s, and certainly the writers with the least regard for the programme's budget. They were fantastic ideas men who let their imaginations run riot on the page, and it was up to the programme makers to translate that imagination into affordable TV drama. Sometimes the boys' ambition outweighed the programme's capabilities, and at other times Doctor Who rose admirably to the demands, but whatever the outcome, Baker and Martin rarely disappointed. Now that Martin is gone (not dead, just gone), I wonder whether Baker can carry on the tradition?

The opening shot is another of Doctor Who's attempts to be Star Wars, with an extravagantly designed spaceship CSO'ing its way through space reminiscent of, but not much like, Star Wars' Tantive IV and Star Destroyer. But then the ship shimmers out of existence, and straightaway Doctor Who has done something different (although it later transpires its jumped into warp-speed, for which we must read light-speed, so perhaps Baker's imagination has wandered somewhat).

The Creature from the Pit Part Four

The one where a giant egg weaves a metal shell around a neutron star...

It's all coming out now! Now that the Tythonian beast has got his little appendages on the weird shield thing, he's able to take control of the larynx of whoever holds it and communicate with everybody. The big green blob is actually named Erato, High Ambassador from the planet Tythonus, who came to Chloris 15 years ago to strike a trade deal. But instead of been welcomed with open arms by the people of Chloris, Erato was unlucky enough to bump into the self-serving Adrasta first, who tricked him into falling into the pit and skulking around in her spent metal mine.

It's all about economics and greed, you see. The Tythonians live on chlorophyll and mineral ores, but that's all running out on their planet, so when they heard there was a world virtually made of chlorophyll (the clue was in the name) they thought it would be a good idea to trade Tythonian metal for Chlorisian vegetable matter, so that the big blobs could eat well and the people of Chloris could use the metal to fight back the suffocating plant-life. But Adrasta, being owner of the only metal mine and most of the metal on Chloris, saw the trade mission as a threat to her wealth and supremacy, so chucked Erato into the pit and fed astrologers at him (great line from the Doctor, that!).

The Creature from the Pit Part Three

The one where the Doctor tries (and fails) to communicate with the creature...

The creature from the pit looks like a giant plastic carrier bag. There are actually endless amusing ways to describe what the creature prop looks like - many have done so, many more have yet to try - but what it essentially boils down to is that it looks absolutely appalling. It's one of the biggest design flops in Doctor Who history. It's not as if designers haven't managed to come up with similar monsters convincingly in the past (the Axons, Krynoid and Rutans spring to mind), but visual effects designer Mat Irvine really does drop the ball here, producing something that makes the programme a laughing stock.

Pity poor Tom Baker who has to spend half the episode in a one-way conversation with the thing. It's a testament to Baker's ability to hold a scene by sheer personality alone that he gets through it at all, but you can see him failing to suppress his mirth at one point. It's inadvisable that he should gently tap the creature's skin, as that merely emphasises the fact it's made of polythene. But it's absolutely the wrong choice to make when he lifts the creature's waggly appendage and blows into it. We're supposed to see the Doctor investigating whether it is a voicepipe, but what we actually see is Doctor Who wandering dangerously close to adult entertainment (a word I use loosely).

The Creature from the Pit Part Two

The one where the Doctor meets a subterranean astrologer...

Grappling onto the sides of The Pit's wall, the Doctor produces from his capacious pockets some rock-climbing pins and a hammer. Now, that's pretty silly isn't it, although certainly not unprecedented that the Doctor should be carrying something wildly appropriate (or inappropriate!) when required. But when he realises he's not altogether sure how to use the rock-climbing equipment, he produces from his pocket a book entitled Everest in Easy Stages. Now that's even sillier, bordering on ridiculous. But when he discovers the book's written in Tibetan, he then produces another book entitled Teach Yourself Tibetan, and that is just several steps too far! It's a great joke, very funny in fact, it's just that it doesn't really have a place here. It's more Basil Brush than Doctor Who (although telling the two apart sometimes is tricksy). This is not a sketch show, this is an adventure in time and space, so stop trying to look smart and get on with it.

Admonishment over. Moving on to Romana, she is the prisoner of the Lady Adrasta, a woman who knows her mind, is no fool, but is more than happy to talk about her problems and fill complete strangers in on the situation at hand. She answers almost every one of Romana's questions, but refuses to expand on why she's interested in the giant eggshell. "There are some questions, my dear, it is better not to ask."

The Creature from the Pit Part One

The one where the Doctor and K-9 are attacked by sentient vegetation...

The TARDIS spins through time and space. Well actually, it's spinning through a big cloud of soap suds, but we'll let that slide. Within the police box, we have to endure one of those ridiculous introductory scenes where Tom Baker gets to be childish and anarchic. This time he's found slumped on the TARDIS floor (the Fourth Doctor rarely uses chairs) with K-9 reading Beatrix Potter, while Romana is busy cleaning out the hold.

There are two observations to zone in on here. Firstly, that K-9's voice has changed, now provided by David Brierley and not John Leeson, which is a little jarring. It can be explained within the fiction by the fact K-9 had laryngitis at the start of the season, but Brierley's prim voice just seems wrong. There's nothing actually wrong with it, it's just that it's different, and as a result, not as good (rather like David Gooderson's Davros). The other observation is that Lalla Ward is wearing one of the most horrendous outfits I've ever seen come out of the TARDIS wardrobe (this is a wardrobe that also harboured the Sixth Doctor's coat). I just don't think it suits her at all, it's like a Victorian nightie, and then there's the awful headband and curtained hairstyle. I'm sure some people appreciate it, but it's far too Laura Ashley for me. Gillian Thomas's make-up for Ward is awful too. It looks like it's been applied by an eight-year-old girl experimenting on mummy for the first time. Yeuch!

City of Death Part Four

The one where Scaroth goes back in time in order to stop himself having to go back in time...

This is the big one, the episode that a whopping 16.1 million people sat down to watch at 6.15pm on Saturday, October 20th, 1979. It is the single most-watched episode of Doctor Who ever, and will probably retain that record forever. Sadly, the main reason for that is not because everybody thought Doctor Who was the best thing on the box, but because it was pretty much the only thing on the box! ITV was on strike, it was completely off air, leaving just the two BBC channels to choose from, so it's no wonder that everybody plumped for Doctor Who. After all, the only other thing they could have watched was Grapevine on BBC2, which was about how trades union and community self-help groups were taking action to... oh blimey, who cares?! There's a spaghetti-headed monster on BBC1 dressed like the Man from Del Monte!

So 16 million people saw David Graham reprise his "death boogie" from last week, and those same 16 million people saw the culmination of one of Doctor Who's wittiest stories ever. Thank goodness these circumstances didn't manifest a few weeks later when it could have been The Horns of Nimon everybody saw!

City of Death Part Three

The one where Scaroth starts to go to pieces...

I love the knowing exchanges between Julian Glover and Tom Baker (and later, Lalla Ward), they're all so adept at delivering the dialogue with just the right tone it was written for. The characters metaphorically circle each other, weighing one another up, going along with the charade of false politeness. When the Doctor asks Tancredi what he's doing in 1505, the Captain replies: "I will tell you. The knowledge will be of little use to you, since you will shortly die." Wonderful stuff!

It seems that Captain Tancredi is not a distant relation of Count Scarlioni's; they are the same man, or at least aspects of the same man. They share their thoughts and can communicate mentally across the barriers of time and space. Tancredi affably explains that he is really Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth race (the spaghetti-headed aliens), and that when the spaceship we saw at the start of part 1 exploded, he, as the last survivor, was fractured into several splinters through time. So Tancredi and Scarlioni are both Scaroth, different shards of his splintered existence. All identical, none complete. What a fascinating idea. It's also rather tragic, as reflected in the solemn way the Doctor responds to the news (as opposed to a cheap wisecrack). I suppose the Doctor, as a Time Lord, can relate to the feeling of being one man being in several places at once.

City of Death Part Two

The one where the Doctor finds six genuine Mona Lisas...

Why does Scarlioni take his face off? It doesn't lead to anything other than providing a good cliffhanger, but the sense of it is lost. What is clever though, is that the carving on the great wooden doors of his chateau appropriately reflect his true spaghetti-faced countenance. In reality, they are the doors of the Hotel des Ambassadeurs des Hollande on Rue Vieille du Temple, and the carvings depict the heads of Medusa, with her hair of snakes. I googled the doors and it looks like they've since been painted red. I wonder what the Count would say about that?

Inside, it's back to a BBC studio, but Richard McManan-Smith's stunning design and decor for the chateau's interior is richly detailed. You barely get to see the corridor properly (fleetingly at the end of part 1, and only in part in this episode) but it's so well dressed, and the amount of research, not to mention time and effort, that went into designing and dressing the living room is astonishing. McManan-Smith was more accustomed to designing sets for variety and comedy shows at the time, such as Mike Yarwood or Lennie Bennett, although he had dabbled with period drama in the past, notably The Pallisers and Colditz. But here, he simply excels himself, as he does with the Renaissance scenes later on.

City of Death Part One

The one where the Doctor and Romana go on honeymoon holiday to Paris...

Ah, this one's written by David Agnew, the same bloke who wrote The Invasion of Time, so that doesn't bode well. In truth, of course, Agnew wasn't a real person, but a pseudonym first used by scriptwriter Anthony Read in 1971 for his Play for Today Hell's Angel, and later his BBC2 play Diane. Read adopted the alias for The Invasion of Time while he was Doctor Who's script editor, sharing it with producer Graham Williams, and it pops up again here as the pseudonym of Williams, new script editor Douglas Adams and writer David Fisher, who came up with the first ideas of what City of Death is based on. A bit of a mish-mash then.

The opening sequence (one of those that would've made a fab cold open if Doctor Who did them back then) features a gorgeous model set of a prehistoric landscape, centring in on an alien spaceship that vies with the Movellans' craft in the last story for sheer design creativity. This ship is a three-legged spider design, with a spherical centre housing an exposed cockpit. It's a radically different and unusual design by one of Doctor Who's unsung heroes, Ian Scoones, and it's a shame City of Death was his last work for the show. He'd also done excellent modelwork for stories such as The Ambassadors of Death, Pyramids of Mars and The Invisible Enemy.